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With Peter Burrows, the truth raises it's ugly head......

History will show that M$ as the mother ship was a slow trickle of doom for those magnets attached to her refrigerator iceberg Titanic emulating sails.
Slow and steady growth, Apple...what a beautiful sunset awaits you later.

Market share is an important statistic, but not always for the more obvious reasons. If you can't get some sales because your market share is too slight, you lose those sales. If you can't get third party support because your market share is too slight, you lose sales that depend on that support. That said, yearly profit - not market cap - is a truer indicator of how well a company is doing. Apple is doing quite well, thank you very much. Gateway, Acer and Packard-Bell are not. Despite market shares.
DLMeyer - the Voice of <a href="http://glhorton.podomatic.com"> G.L.Horton's Stage Page/a> pod cast

Hey, let's look at the bright side...M$ now only has 5 companies in their database to mail Vista to to preinstall...HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and yes, now Apple.
Soon, Apple will be their best customer.

Need a better spell checker here - and/or the ability to edit our posts. Or ... maybe I shouldn't be using my wife's glossy iMac instead of my own matte G5 with Cinema display. But ... it's so pretty! Sorry ... off-topic, here.

Dave

Apple's motto of "Think Different" was way before its time!

...and it has served Apple well.

Acer and Gateway have excelled at making low quality, cheap units for those people that don't want to spend the money for quality.

Usually when a component in one of these machines goes out the customer usually gets another $400 to $600 or so computer.

These units are disposable.

It's like buying a $2 hammer—sure it's a new hammer and it's new, but it will always be a $2 hammer.

There are more Windows boxes out there than MAC toys. The simple reason is Windows machines are REAL computers for the REAL world and everyone knows it.

Anyone who says market share doesn't matter just doesn't get it. More is always better. Microsoft won, Apple lost. It's as plain as that.

Your potential. Our passion.™

P.S. Congratulations Acer! The Gateway acquisition really helps complete the full line of fabulous Microsoft Windows Vista based computers in your product mix. I speak for everyone when I say I can't wait to see what you come up with next. Good job!

I haven't met a Mac user I felt sorrow for yet.

I haven't met a Windows user I didn't feel sorry for yet.

Market share means bugger all to anyone unless it's falling because the products aren't being bought and aren't well regarded.

MDN admin, please do us a favour and do something about this twat Zune Tang. If I glance at another of his posts I'll go mad because he he is so unfunny.

couldn't figure out the conundrum of selling a highly-complex product that carries the margins of a banana

I love that line. Priceless.

Macaday,

Zune Tang is being SARCASTIC! MDN Admin, please before every Zune Tang post put the word SARCASM, that way people who do not have 'SAR-DAR' will instantly recognize his posts for what they are.

Turano

It's simple. Would you rather sell 250 items of something and make $10 profit on each of them, or 100 items of something and make $100 profit on each of them. It's easy to see which of those two methods will make the company the most profit, market share be damned...

Beautiful Zune Tang!

I love the " I speak for everyone when I say I can't wait to see what you come up with next. Good job!"

I'm sill laughing.

You come up with great stuff!

Don't know if MDN will do anything about Zune Tang, freedom of speech etc.

Anyhow Zune Tang is obviously delusional as his or indeed hers posts clearly indicate that.

@Macaday:

I wouldn't stress yourself about Zune Tang's comments. Every village has an idiot and this idiot Zune Tang always sounds so ridiculous he makes any sane MDN reader laugh at the absurdity of his drivel.

Basically if you take the truth and then change it into the complete opposite. (The sky is green and grass is blue etc) you get a typical Zune Tang style comment.

He is either one of four types of people:
1) A Mac user that is just doing it to get a rise out of the Mac faithful for kicks.
2) A Windows faithful "Cognitive Dissonance" suffering fool who feels threatened because Apple is doing far far better than any one PC manufacturer and is slowly taking ground.
3) A complete idiot.
4) Steve Ballmer, desperately trying to get some credibility back for his flagship product.

Take your pick mate.

MDN word "feed"
as in "Don't feed the trolls!"

". . . a highly-complex product that carries the margins of a banana . . ."

So, the whole bunch got too ripe for the market and lost its appeal? No split for him.

@turano .... we know it is sarcasm ... it still is not funny ... Zune Tang has become old and stale ...

The PC makers are stuck with their current business model. They cannot innovate because they are tied to Windows and they have to maintain the margins by minimizing R&D;in their new machines. The best they can do is take the newest components and put them together.

For them it is Catch 22. HP are doing well. In a few years, just like Dell they will be on the decline and another vendor (probably Lenovo) will be in the ascendancy.

As we all know, Apple's business model is completely different. They have the flexibility to innovate. Sometimes they get it wrong but most of the time it is exactly what the customer wants.

MW "leaders" - now that's cool

@turano

whether ZT is being sarcastic or not, he is not funny or entertaining in any way, and I like Macaday, grow weary of him. If he is indeed a Mac user in wolf's clothing as some propose, he is still a troll because he attempts to incite a heated response from readers here. If he continues his campaign here I will take my Mac News reading elsewhere entirely.

"<a href="http://glhorton.podomatic.com"> G.L.Horton's Stage Page/a> pod cast... maybe I shouldn't be using my wife's glossy iMac ..,"

And it begins...

that is something i hadnt thought of and is a really good point: all the hardware manufactures of micros**t boxes dont really have a say in what goes into the operating system that they have to build around. they cant come up with new innovative products because they have to stick with what they are given. whereas apple can come up with a new idea for the os and go to hardware and say 'make this happen' and viseversa. dont have to worry about pleasing the mothership because they are the mothership

are there any 'dell rumor' sites? no, because we all know what vista can (read: cant) do, and thats the limit. OOOOOOO NEW LAPTOP COLORS!!??!!! ZOMG!

MW: "end" the end is near for more m$ box makers!

Zune Tang, 'ol buddy. It was bad enough that Gateway got scooped up after scooping up Packard Bell and Emachine, but the real insult is that they got scooped up for only pocket change...only 710 million??? Apple is worth well over 100 billion. It is really a shame for the moo cow company. At least they had some sort of image.
I hope that what ever they do come up with next is better than what HP has come up with to try to compete with the iMac...that contraption is a plastic disaster with a huge footprint.

Hey ZT, tell me: do you wear a short-sleeve shirt with a tie... you know, Dilbert style?

Another lovely post, by the way.

Zune Tang truly represents the way PC users truly think.
He is the ultimate sheep! We need a daily reminder of just how people are out there.
He never posts more than once because he simply doesn't have any real argument left to argue. He is fake!

When you see a post from someone you don't like skip it. I thought this space was for commenting on the story.
Getting back to the story:
Hopefully all these companies will be forced to buy each other up and another OS player or system builder with a different OS will emerge. Hopefully something in the POSIX neighborhood, to mix it up a little. Windows just isn't right. Linux, BSD & Mac OS feel right. Maybe someone can get Amiga's wheels turning again. With a C compiler in these systems all the apps out there can be run on whichever platform you happen to have. That way, if you like KDE or Aqua or XFCE or whatever you're set. That's quite a while out if ever, sadly.

Zune Tang, not your best effort. Today's just didn't make me laugh. Satire is best when it garners a laugh. I know it's hard having to be funny every time, so keep at it.

MW: Hot. Sorry, ZT, not today.

isn't it time Apple bought Dell, shut it down and gave the money back to the shareholders?

What a stupid article. Anyone who thinks the Acer-Gateway merger affects Apple in any shape or form is blind. It's not as if Acer is now suddenly selling more PCs. All that Acer did was to absorb Gateway's numbers under the Acer name. That has no effect on market share, it just combines two retailers into one.

Unfortunately for Acer, it has to accept Gateway's reputation, problems, and other issues to go along with its newfound sales numbers. This move is really about Acer v. Lenovo, not Acer v. Apple.

@AAPLGuy

Real mature. Do you run home to mommy everytime someone does or says something you don't like?

You would seriously go read some other site just to get away from someone voicing their own opinion/trying to be amusing? I would hate to see what you would do if faced with a real issue that actually mattered, if you will run away from a site due to a specific user comment.

Turano

"To me, it's a powerful reminder of the wisdom of Jobs' approach to business--which values profits over growth, and which values market share mostly as a trailing indicator of success rather than a primary peg of a strategy," Burrows writes.

It's so easy to look at it from hindsight. It wasn't so long ago that Apple was being written off as a dying computer company, that the Windows ecosystem was far superior. Jobs didn't have a breakthrough with NeXT nor with Pixar for years.

i think it's a reminder of how the computer industry is changing and how companies are not recognizing the change quickly enough. It's also the computer and consumer electronic markets maturing to Apple's strengths and really great products from Apple.

Apple can also misread the future: it's happened before with DVD's instead of CD-R's in the original iMacs and the Cube being overpriced.

Apple isn't winning the PC Wars.

1: IBM matured and is producing proccessors and mainframes. The PC buisness is trivial to them now and just baggage. So the Chinese government now owns the IBM PC division. A much bigger threat because of low wages.

2: HP is now a major competitor with sales of printers backing up their computer division. Another major threat to Apple.

3: Acer/Gateway/PackardBell is a combined threat.

So even though the names have changed and companies have merged. The reality is they control the market and influence the production facilities in Asia.

4: Dell, who is going to merge/buy them?

The Chinese Government, HP or AGPB?

Of course Apple is now Apple and no longer Apple Computer. Also the processors are Intels and the screens are becoming cheap glossy CRAP like PC's.

So the question is, who is going to buy Apple's computer division and WHEN?

Rememeber, Steve Jobs really makes big moves to fatten his wallet.

1: Pixar sold to Disney.
2: NeXT sold to Apple Computer.

3: Apple Computer sold to ???

Zune Tang-

It's Mac, not MAC. Usually your drivel is pretty entertaining, but you can tell when you are trying too hard. Your rants were better when it sounded like you really believed what you were saying.

Can you picture walking into a business meeting with an Acer Ferrari? I can, because I do it all the time…. and, trust me, the look on folks’ faces is worth the price of admission.

So said the knowledgeable and oft quoted Rob Enderle in his article about this issue http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback209.html where he points out that HP is growing faster in the consumer space than Apple, who remains merely a wildcard.

Apple Computer makes iPods, iPhones, AppleTVs and their computers just run toy programs for fanboys the latest of which, iMovie and Garageband, are even more toy like than before. They don't even have decent games like real computers do so they aren't even decent toys.

What do you Mac lemmings do all day? Scour MacDailyNews for some Mac news to worship? Get a real windows computer, do some real work, play some real games.

Apple's closed system used to be a liability, now it's turned out to be an asset, insulating it against the cut-throat margin slashing.

MDN admin: Please do something about the tiresome scolds who keep whining about Zune Tang. To the retards who don't get it: ZT is providing humorous satire. Regular readers of this site like the wit and charm it takes to produce this satire. Long live Zune Tang!

Or we could just have a dittohead vs. darwinian flame war if you just want to bitch.

Just another example that Windows' Gross Arrogance (WGA) is the slow kiss of death for any company married to that OS. I am hearing more and more from "kids" who are leaving Windows behind, because of all the viruses and DRM, for Mac OS and Ubuntu Linux. They will not run Vista for their life. It is likely what is behind the recent failures of companies like Gateway and Dell who primarily sell to the lower end of the market; the cash strapped teen.

Waaahhh!

Geez all you babies who don't like Zune Tang!

I'm getting a little tired of his/her posts as well, but the last I knew, the freedom of speech is still at the top of all freedoms.

If you don't like the posts, DON'T EFFING READ THEM!!!

According to several posts over the last year that I've been reading MDN, ZT is often requested to add insight. (Distorted or otherwise)

I don't see anyone asking you to post here turano, Macaday.
So "Buh-bye APPLguy" your presence won't be missed.

MW: "red" - I see red when the Commies come out and try to take my basic freedoms away.

Jeez... first ZT and his long-in-the-tooth act, then all the anti-ZT whiners, followed by all the anti-ZT whiner whiners... this is more fun than all the gossip on FOXnews. And an equally great waste of time... heh!

MW: "late" - as in it's getting late, so I should do something productive now...

if you want to see what i look like and how serious i am go to meatspin.com and find out

Be self-reliant and build products that no one else can offer. That's Apple's philosophy. Look at the Apple II, Mac, Mac OS X, iPod/iTunes, iPhone... When you have a monopoly on coolness, success follows.

@Kit-N

I believe we are on the same side of this one Kit-N. So I think I will stay a MDN reader. Perhaps read peoples postings before you call them out.

Thanks,

Turano

Turano, you're absolutely right. I had you grouped in with Macaday and APPLguy.

My most humble apologies.

Sorry. I have no excuses.

I get cranky this time of day.

I'm throwing my vote for Zune Tang. It's called sarcasm people, and more often than not ZTs statements are exactly the kind of spin that Apple opponents put on their stories.

It's good clean fun. It's not like this is a dead serious news site. It's a site dead serious in it's pro-Apple stance.

PC industry pioneer Ted Waitt couldn't figure out the conundrum of selling a highly-complex product that carries the margins of a banana,

You know, the markup is greater on a single banana than on a single generic PC.

Don't believe me? What do they cost at your employee lunch room or school cafeteria?

All this sale is going to do is to make GTW a stronger company—if Acer decides to put enough money into it.

It's 50/50 right now.

I'm afraid that you're wrong. Free speech is no longer tolerated in the US. Why else would Bush's advance team remove people for wearing anti-war T-shirts before the W gave his speech on our wonderfully free country?

Because it was really a political rally, and you don't have your opposition on camera at one of those.

How many commodity box proliferators does the marketplace need, anyway? A bunch of guys all making the same thing the same way, and competing solely on price, bumrushing headlong toward the lowest common denominator. Whoopdee damn doo.

Yeah, Gateway had some kitsch to 'em once upon a time with the cow thing, just like IBM had some too (remember the Charlie Chaplin look-alike character?), and so did Dell (remember this? "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!).

Meanwhile, Apple (especially since Steve came back) has been "Thinking Different" the whole time. In the computer game, vertical integration (i.e. "making the whole widget") is the play. The hardware, the software, the OS, the marketing (i.e. buzz/rumors/secrecy), finally taking control of the retailing of their products; hey, Apple's mojo is back at full strength.

I predict in the near future that since there are now fewer players in the computing landscape, they will all struggle mightily attempting to compete with Apple in Apple's arena: innovation. Look for Apple to start gobbling up market share in, at first, shocking, but ultimately, inevitable fashion between now and 2010. This decade for Apple will be taught in business schools from 2010 forward.

Peace.
Olmecmystic

P.S. Oh, and Zune Tang...Think Different, buddy. Get a MAC!